Meaning of Nessus shirt | Babel Free

Definitions

A fatal present or inescapable fate.

figuratively

Equivalents

Examples

“No wonder⟳ then that, with this age-long suppression (necessary in a sense⟳ though it may have⟳ been) which marks the Christian dispensation, there should have⟳ been associated endless Sickness and Crime and sordid Poverty, the Crucifixion of animals in the name⟳ of Science and of human workers in the name⟳ of Wealth, and wars and horrors innumerable! Hercules writhing in the Nessus-shirt or Prometheus nailed to the rocks are only as figures of a toy miniature compared with this vision of the great and divine Spirit of Man caught in the clutches of those dread Diseases which through the centuries have⟳ been eating into his very heart and vitals.”

CEFR level